Earth Day celebrations are taking place throughout our nation
and the region this week, so the irony of the declaration that the
Pajaro is one of America’s most endangered waterways was probably
lost on none of us.
Earth Day celebrations are taking place throughout our nation and the region this week, so the irony of the declaration that the Pajaro is one of America’s most endangered waterways was probably lost on none of us.
Historically, we have had a love-hate relationship with our rivers. The flow of our rivers through a dry land carries enormous economic benefit. Our richest farmland was deposited over the centuries by countless floods. So our farmers take advantage of that bounty by pushing croplands to the banks of our rivers. But our rivers do more for all of us. Rivers carry water that seeps back into the ground, where it remains for extraction by wells far from river channels.
In San Benito County, in-stream mining has extracted sand and gravel that helped build the Bay Area.
A stroll along the Coyote Creek Parkway that stretches from Morgan Hill to San Jose reveals what may be a less tangible – but no less real – benefit. Rivers are magnets for recreation and lush ribbons of habitat for wildlife.
So while there is much to love about our rivers, we have not always treated them with love. Poorly managed mining activity in the past stripped much of the San Benito River of its vegetation, and created conditions that accelerate river flow – and erosion. The result is that some bridges critical to transportation in the county experienced undercutting. Neighboring landowners in years past coped with erosion by cabling together junk cars, and anchoring the hulks along stream banks, where they could continue to leak oil into our water supply.
The San Benito River, in particular, was a convenient dump, one sure to be emptied of its contents with the next flood surge. But that roaming refuse landed someplace – along the lower Pajaro River or even in the Monterey Bay.
The declaration of the Pajaro as “threatened” by an environmental advocacy group last week may have little value on its face, but to the degree that it heightens awareness of the river system that drains South Valley and much of San Benito, it has value. So, too, do the efforts of volunteers – many of them students – to pull trash from our rivers this weekend. Volunteers can see firsthand what we have lost, and what we might regain.
It’s time to embrace our rivers for what they are, and for what they can be. Even as they sustain our leading industry, they can sustain us all, bringing us closer to the place we all call home.
